


just know you're not alone (i'm gonna make this place your home)

by skywalking-across-the-galaxy (BadWolfGirl01)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Clone Wars, First Meetings, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Literal Sleeping Together, Psychic Wolves, Psychic Wolves For Lupercalia, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) Spoilers, as collegefangirl3791's fic, assume it's in the same verse, because they don't have a clan, how do tag, i blame all my friends you are the worst enablers, i don't even know what this is, like mandos would, that probably should be mentioned, there's a lot of worldbuilding that's not mentioned here, wolves get their clan colors from their Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 02:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17799764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolfGirl01/pseuds/skywalking-across-the-galaxy
Summary: She’s never been in a battle, never seen a battalion (a pack, Master Secura says, listening to Ahsoka’s fumbling attempt to talk to Bly, that’s the word they use for it) in action, but she can imagine it: snarling and snapping teeth and fur standing on end, the air singing with bloodlust (even though droids don’t bleed more than oil and grease) and anger and ferocity, like a force of nature, like the blizzard she’d seen in a nature holo once. It makes the huntress in her tremble at the thought of it, in excitement (not fear - never fear, not yet, she’s too young to be afraid; she is a Jedi and the Republic is at its height).When they tell her she’s being assigned to Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, as his padawan, she spends the entire night before she’s supposed to leave reading about Mandalorians.[or: Mandalorians are giant psychic wolves. Lupercalia fic.]





	just know you're not alone (i'm gonna make this place your home)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ProwlingThunder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/gifts), [collegefangirl3791](https://archiveofourown.org/users/collegefangirl3791/gifts).



> i blame ProwlingThunder for every word of this fic.

Ahsoka’d never met a Mandalorian before the Jedi Council pulled her out of Initiate classes to go run messages to the front of the newly-declared war. Now, well, she hasn’t ever really met a  _ true _ Mando, one from Mandalore itself, but the clones are close enough. Bone-white fur (except in a couple battalions, where they’ve already gotten close with their Jedi, close enough for faint colors to come out, shimmering like a splotch of oil on water), snarling teeth, amber eyes that’re startlingly intelligent. People say -  _ people, _ of course, meaning the average Republic sentient - that the clones are just clones, just a copy of the Mandalorian species, are battle-smart but nothing more; Ahsoka meets the eyes of Master Secura’s already-gold-dusted Bly and sees  _ sentience. _

She’s never been in a battle, never seen a battalion  _ (a pack, _ Master Secura says, listening to Ahsoka’s fumbling attempt to talk to Bly,  _ that’s the word they use for it) _ in action, but she can imagine it: snarling and snapping teeth and fur standing on end, the air singing with bloodlust (even though droids don’t bleed more than oil and grease) and anger and ferocity, like a force of nature, like the blizzard she’d seen in a nature holo once. It makes the huntress in her tremble at the thought of it, in excitement (not fear - never fear, not yet, she’s too young to be afraid; she is a Jedi and the Republic is at its height).

When they tell her she’s being assigned to  _ Anakin Skywalker, _ the  _ Chosen One, _ as his padawan, she spends the entire night before she’s supposed to leave reading about Mandalorians.

The clones aren’t entirely like the Mandos, she decides, comparing what little she’d been able to pick up from Bly and his… pack with what the holonovel says. Mandos are more solitary. She thinks clones will die for their pack, or their Jedi. 

Master Skywalker’s battalion is called the 501st, and when Ahsoka steps out of the shuttle that brought her down to Christophsis, they’re  _ everywhere. _ As tall as her (Bly had been, too, but somehow it feels more real, on a battlefield), crouching behind fortifications, bodies covered in jointed plastoid armor pieces and collars around their necks.

They’re beautiful.

One of them is sitting next to Master Skywalker’s shoulder, perfectly calm, watching her with the same amber eyes they all have, only these are different. Flecked richer gold, maybe, or there’s just more warmth in them, she’s not sure, but for a moment she can  _ feel _ him, she thinks.

Then, of course, is when Master Kenobi chooses to speak. “Hello, young one,” he says, and she jumps a little, jerks her startled, guilty gaze to the Jedi Master’s face and bows.

“I’m Ahsoka Tano,” she says. “Master Yoda sent me - I’m supposed to be Master Skywalker’s padawan?”

_ “What?” _ Master Skywalker says. “I don’t want a padawan - you aren’t even  _ old enough _ to be on a battlefield.” Master Kenobi gives him a  _ look, _ sharp and a bit reproachful, and Master Skywalker frowns. “What? She’s  _ not.” _

It stings. Ahsoka lifts her chin, snaps, “I am  _ too. _ I know how to fight and I’m not a  _ liability.” _

There’s silence.

“Rex,” Master Skywalker says, finally, and the clone at his side looks up, “take the youngling and show her around, would you? If she’s gonna be here, at least she can help. We’ll take her back to Coruscant after we get  _ off this rock.” _

She does not slump at the words, forces herself to stay tall and fierce. He  _ won’t _ send her back. She can fight, she’s old enough, she’s  _ strong enough, _ she can do this. She will.

Rex pushes himself to his feet in a fluid motion, and it’s not her imagination this time, there’s a distinct  _ this way _ pressing into her mind, through the Force, and she  _ stares, _ can’t help it.

She  _ reaches, _ a little bit, because there’s a distance that makes the words echo too faintly, and suddenly everything is clear, sharp, like a pair of macrobinoculars coming into focus.  _ Hi, _ she thinks, tentatively.

_ This way _ is repeated, stronger, but with something like warmth behind the projection, and Ahsoka smiles, just a little bit, twists her fingers into her skirt, then sucks in a deep breath and tucks her hands behind her back the way Master Skywalker is, pushes her shoulders back. 

“So your name’s Rex?” she asks, walking over to the clone, following him as he starts away from her shuttle.

_ Yes, _ she hears, almost audible, now, and she grins.

“So, Rex,” she says, and skips to catch up so she’s walking next to his head - he seems to be taking her over to their reinforcements, “if I’m a Jedi, does that mean I outrank you?”

Rex freezes in place so fast she almost can’t keep up, nearly overbalances trying to follow the motion and stumbles.  _ In my book, pup, _ he growls  _ (growls, _ just a bit, it makes all her instincts stumble over each other, unable to decide if he’s a threat or not),  _ experience outranks  _ **_everything._ ** He presses the last word into her mind with  _ emphasis, _ with the feel of  _ Jedi-Senator-Chancellor, _ like he could care less what she is.

Ahsoka tilts her head to one side, thoughtful. “Then I guess I’ll just have to start getting some,” she says, and she feels his  _ surprise. _

 

Ahsoka has never experienced anything like battle.

At first, she  _ loves _ it - loves the way her blood sings as her lightsaber hums a vivid green slash through the air, the almost-laugh she can feel shivering through her fledgling training bond with Master Skywalker, the  _ satisfaction-pride-warmth _ when she cuts through another droid. Loves the rush of adrenaline, snapping everything into razor-sharp focus, giving her muscles nearly-boundless energy, making the huntress in her leap to life; revels in the  _ camaraderie _ she feels, with Master Skywalker and Master Kenobi and the troops.

But the first battle, everything’s so new, she hasn’t been integrated into the packsense yet - the not-exactly-hivemind, the telepathic (Force?) connection that links the battalion, the pack, together into a single, cohesive unit - the only one she can really  _ hear _ is Rex, is his desperate call for help on the mountaintop monastery on Teth. She doesn’t know why Master Skywalker is  _ pale _ beneath his dusty tan skin, why he’s  _ so _ determined to make it back, even though their  _ mandate _ is to take the small, stinky Hutt child back to Tatooine, why  _ she, _ the padawan learner, has to be the responsible one and argue with her new Master.

“They need our  _ help,” _ Master Skywalker snaps, spits out a few swears in an odd, vowel-heavy language she’s never heard before.

“Master Obi-Wan’s coming,” Ahsoka reasons. “And we’ve got to get Stinky back to Tatooine - Master, we only have a few hours left!”

_ “Ahsoka,” _ Master Skywalker says, and something in the word makes her  _ stop. _ It’s anger and fear and  _ pain, _ loss, something heavy and hollow caving her chest in - she realizes he’s projecting across their thin pairbond, a thick layer of  _ emotion, _ of emptiness and anguish and a wash of  _ determination, _ the feel of hair standing all on end and hackles rising and a growl low in her throat.

“What-” she tries, and stops, swallows, “-is that?”

“The packsense,” Master Skywalker says, and that is the first time she hears the word. “They  _ need me, _ Ahsoka.”

“We  _ can’t _ take the time, Master,” she says, even though it aches, behind her eyes, is pressure hot and heavy in her throat, something catching in her lungs.

“I  _ know,” _ he hisses, and there’s  _ anger _ again, but it’s not directed at her, she can  _ sense _ that.

“Master Kenobi will help them,” Ahsoka says, firmly, and she believes it, too.

She puts the silent screaming as far to the back of her mind as she can, where the  _ realization _ starting to creep across her thoughts can’t stain this moment, her and her Master and the sweet taste of victory on her tongue.

 

Two.

That’s how many bleeding, battered wolves are waiting, when Ahsoka and Master Skywalker get back to Coruscant, Ahsoka still brimming with the elation of  _ success, _ of beating out the odds and defeating Dooku’s plan, delivering Stinky safely to his (even stinkier) father. She can’t wait to tell the men, to show them (carefully, because everything is still so new) her fight with the droids, but Master Skywalker looks  _ sick _ long before they reach the barracks and that really should’ve been a clue, but nothing sets in until Rex limps up, blood staining one leg vivid crimson, and hums,  _ we lost [rushing water-pouring rain]. _

“All of them?” Master Skywalker asks.

A nod, just a dip of Rex’s muzzle.  _ Just me and Denal. _

“I’m sorry, Rex.”

_ Mission comes first, sir. Good job taking care of the pup. _ Rex nods his huge head again, turns and starts to limp away.

He’s leaving a bloody pawprint on the floor whenever he sets his injured leg down, Ahsoka notices.

So, “Wait,” she calls, and Rex stops. Hesitates with his paw held just above the ground, and she feels a sort of  _?? _ from him, pressing at her mind. “You’re hurt.”

There’s an impression like  _ not important-nothing, _ and she frowns. Leaves Master Skywalker’s side and crouches down by Rex’s paw, sees a sliver of plastoid wedged up between the pads on the underside of his paw.

“How’d this get here?” she murmurs, closes her eyes and reaches out with her awareness, uses the Force to feel for the edges of the plastoid piece, makes sure there’s nothing too much in the way before she grasps the piece and  _ pulls. _

It slides right out, tumbles into her cupped hands, and she opens her eyes to see Rex’s golden ones focused entirely on her.  _ Why’d you do that? _ he asks, feels  _ surprised, _ and she frowns.

“You’re bleeding,” she says. Sends Master Skywalker a pulse of  _ thank you _ and gratitude when he brings her over a swatch of bandages and a bacta patch. She folds the bacta patch carefully around the torn skin, wraps it all up in the bandages, continues, “Letting people be hurt and not helping them isn’t the Jedi way.”

Rex  _ looks _ at her, again, and she almost thinks his gaze is  _ assessing _ before something shifts.  _ Welcome to the pack, Commander, _ he says, and touches his damp nose to her forehead. She squeaks, startles, nearly drops his paw - and then there’s a rush of emotion, a wave of  _ presence, _ and something snaps into place. A background hum of thoughts-words-feelings all wrapped up in  _ mine-ours _ \- and then fading away as fast as it’d come, to a whisper in the back of her mind, an  _ awareness _ of a thousand minds humming together in wordless accord, a constant sharing of emotions and thoughts, all bouncing back and forth across the live-wire lines between them, that web of connection.

The packsense.

“Oh,” she breathes, but by the time she focuses enough to look back at Rex he’s gone, limping away again like nothing even happened.

 

Things are different, after that.

Their next campaign is smaller, more of a recovery, she thinks; the battalion (the pack) is sent to a small moon in the Outer Rim - it’s occupied by a medium-sized droid force, concentrated in a single airbase and a few outlying guard posts. Ahsoka is  _ excited, _ remembering the thrill of battle on Christophsis and Teth - excited enough she almost can forget the  _ paleness _ on Master Skywalker’s skin and the  _ feeling _ she’d gotten from him, of pain and horror and emptiness.

She can’t forget it for long.

Because  _ this _ time, she can feel the packsense, she can feel the first time a blaster bolt hits home: there’s a bright, bleeding flash of pain and then a mind shears away from her, a star blinking out in both her sense of the Force and her sense of the pack itself (a deeper, more intimate feeling, that last one - like a part of her mind being ripped away). It hits  _ hard, _ sucks all the breath out of her lungs, leaves her reeling, and she stumbles, nearly misses a blaster bolt before she feels something - a nose cool and damp in the center of her back. Pushing her forward, saying  _ get up, little one, get up, _ showing her how to push the packsense  _ back, away, _ until she can breathe again, until she can  _ think _ past the echoing  _ emptiness _ where Tracer had been.

(Tracer, and Red, and Wicker, and ‘44, and Vin, and on and on and on…)

They take the base. That night, Ahsoka can’t sleep.

She  _ tries, _ but her dreams are full of Tracer’s pain, and Rickety’s scream through the packsense,  _ nonono, _ and ‘44 who doesn’t - didn’t - even have a name, and-

She can’t sleep.

The packsense is muted by distance (Master Skywalker had said it’s because it’s so new to her, that she’s not linked in all the way yet, that once everything settles she’ll always feel the pack- the battalion, because they are all one in a way the Jedi have never seen before), the hum not enough to soothe the raw, ragged gaps in her awareness where so many minds used to be (and she wonders if she can call them brothers, now that she’s a part of them and they’re a part of her) - so she climbs out of bed, hooks her lightsaber back on her belt and pads through the darkened corridors, hugs her arms a little.

She could go to Master Skywalker - but she doesn’t want him to think she’s too young, too small, too scared to be his padawan. So she goes to the barracks instead, curls up in a small corner and closes her eyes and lets the pack’s collective presence calm her to sleep.

 

She’s woken by a soft breath in her face.

Ahsoka opens her eyes, slowly, rubs her forearm across them, squints and focuses to see someone - Rex, she thinks - looming over her, warm golden eyes a handful of centimeters from her own.  _ Come with me, _ he says, before she can think to apologize for invading their space - he turns and pads away, lumbers over to a sprawling pile of wolves all curled around each other. 

She pushes herself to her feet almost instinctively, feels a bit like she’s in a dream, drifts past a few solitary wolves stretched out to their full extent, comes to a stop next to Rex’s lithe form.  _ Here? _ she thinks, pressing the word at him through the packsense, through the thin thread of Force tying their minds together.

_ Sleep with us, _ Rex says, and for the first time she catches a hint of - uncertainty? from him.  _ It’ll help the loss. _

Oh. Ahsoka tilts her head to one side, considering, and then nods decisively.  _ You don’t mind? _

Speaking aloud would break the atmosphere, she thinks.

_ You are packsister, _ someone else - not Rex, she thinks it might be Jesse - says, a giant head lifting off the padded floor and sleepy amber eyes blinking at her.  _ Come sleep. _

So Ahsoka lowers herself to the ground, pillows her head on an offered paw, huffs a bit of a laugh when Rex flops down and, without ceremony, curls his entire body around her smaller one. His fur is soft and silken against her skin and she buries her face in the shorter tufts in his neck, feels the thin press of his collar against the very tips of her montrals.

_ Thank you, _ she hums, and then, wrapped in warmth and the feeling of pack, of community and strength and belonging, she drifts off to sleep.

 

And high up on Rex’s shoulder, nearly to his spine, a patch of snowy-white fur fades into deep blue.


End file.
